


The Two Sides of the Moon

by ForlornMelodies



Category: Notre-Dame de Paris | The Hunchback of Notre-Dame - All Media Types, Notre-Dame de Paris | The Hunchback of Notre-Dame - Victor Hugo, The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1996)
Genre: Background Fresme, Domestic Fluff, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-10
Updated: 2018-08-15
Packaged: 2019-06-25 10:47:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,531
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15639192
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ForlornMelodies/pseuds/ForlornMelodies
Summary: What if Dom Claude Frollo and Minister Claude Frollo met?





	1. Good (and not so good) souls

**Author's Note:**

> ~~~~READ~~~~  
> To avoid confusion, it should be noted that I'll address Hugo's creation as Claude, and Disney's as Frollo.

It was the midday of Quasimodo Sunday that saw the assembly of an unusually large number of people around one of the foundlings beds. If one were to venture near and stand among them, one would hear all the curses and horrific promises directed, rather bewilderingly, at a child of four. The reason for the scorn, however, should become evident when one takes a glance at the form and face of the foundling, who is so severely deformed that the populace of medieval France couldn’t find a better explanation for the deformity other than to claim him a child of the Devil.

“It’s an omen!” cried one of the men, “This Devil's spawn foretells of great calamities that will befall the whole of Paris!”

Gasps were issued and the bystanders crossed themselves.

“Isn’t there a way to evade such a fate?” 

“Perhaps if we burn it!” 

“Yes! We shall prepare a faggot — a fine, flaming faggot!”

At that moment, two men pushed in-between the crowd to get a hold of the sobbing child. They reached for him at the same time, and raised their eyes to look at the person who interrupted their epiphany-based acts.

The older man, the High Minister of Justice, claimed the child before the clerk could.

“I’ll take care of it,” he declared, holding the child as though he were a putrid fish. “The city of Paris shan’t be touched by any sort of calamity as long as I’m alive.”

The clerk frowned, ill at ease. “And what do you plan to do with him?”

Frollo simpered, his eyes shining maliciously. “Tempting as it is to burn it, it’s much quicker to dispose of the Devil's spawn in the nearby well.”

The child was swiftly removed from the judge’s clasp, whose mouth fell agape at the impudence of the young man. 

“You shall do no such thing,” Claude said, frowning. “He is a child — a gravely deformed one perhaps, but by no means the Devil’s spawn or an omen of any kind.”

A nun tapped the judge on the shoulder. “You know, Minister, they say this young clerk is a sorcerer!”

Frollo regarded Claude and sneered. “And he dares to wear the cloth,” he muttered to himself. “Tell me, boy, what do _you_ plan to do with him?”

Claude, who heard the nun’s pathetic attempt at whispering, restrained himself from rolling his eyes. “I shall adopt him and raise him as my own.”

The response he got was derisive laughter. “Raise him? You’re barely out of your adolescence! Where are _your_ parents, boy?”

Taunting didn’t work so well on Claude, who held people in low esteem and was hardly surprised at any sort of nastiness he received.

“Dead, if you must know,” Claude said.

Frollo let out a hum. Both men seemed bored at this point.

“How did they die?” the judge asked apathetically.

“The plague claimed them.”

“Ah,” the smirk returned to Frollo’s face. “The plague. A divine punishment for the sins of people. It’s this that makes sparing the thing in your arms so selfishly cruel on your part — you’re damning us all with another malady by allowing this sinful existence to endure!”

Claude blinked. “I could say the same about you.” He began to walk away, leaving the scandalized judge and the terrified crowd behind.

Frollo reached out and placed a pincer of a hand on Claude’s shoulder. “Now you listen to me, boy,” he hissed in his ear, “I could have you imprisoned for the rest of your petty life. I could torture you in ways that don’t occur to you even in your wildest imaginations.”

“On what charge?” said Claude calmly.

If nonchalance was a crime, Frollo would give Claude the worst sentence ever scribed in the law book. Hell, he would invent a new one just for him.

“Peace obstruction and posing a nation-wide threat!”

“… By adopting a child?”

Frollo’s sneer was met by a bitter smile.

Claude continued, “I could report you to the bishop as well, for threatening a member of the clergy and wishing to dispose of a life on unfounded claims. Do you truly want the opposition of the bishop, Minister?”

Not to be bested, Frollo appraised the clerk before him spitefully. “A sorcerer, didn’t you say, Sister? Well, mark my words, boy. I shall remember you. I shall track you down. And when you falter, when you slip and reveal an act of sorcery, I will be there to apprehend you. Let’s see how the bishop will rush to your aid then.”

Claude was silent, running the words over in his mind. Then he gave a tired sigh, as if an extra load (but not necessarily a bigger one than the usual) was added on his back.

“Till this happens, Minister,” he said, bidding him goodbye. He exited with a pensive look on his face, the child clutching onto his robes.

Frollo stared at the diminishing form with his hands clasped behind his back. He shall indeed remember this insolent clerk.

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

Frollo, refined and self-important, stood at the door of a modest dwelling as he awaited the answer to his knocking. When it finally came, he watched the recipient’s expression change from mild surprise to displeasure. Of course, the High Minister of Justice does not await an invitation, so he entered at once and began judging the decor silently.

“To what do I owe the honor of your visit, Minister?” Claude said monotonously.

Frollo gave a satisfied smirk that had a habit of frequenting his mouth. “Remember my promise, boy? Well, I researched everything there is to know about you, and surprised I indeed was to find out you were a very accomplished scholar.”

Claude raised an eyebrow, suspicious already. He gave a slight nod to indicate that he was awaiting the point of this proclamation.

‘Oh, Maria, give me the patience to deal with this boy’s impudence,’ Frollo thought, but his smirk morphed into what he hoped was a welcoming, congenial smile. Claude only grew more suspicious.

“I could really benefit from having a person of your knowledge and mastery on my side. What do you say — I give you a home much finer than this and a library filled with books from all around the world, and you just answer to my every whim and command. Does that not sound like a marvelous deal?” Frollo said.

He didn’t know that his interlocutor was as proud as him.

Claude, blinking once, simply said, “No.” A baby started whining in the distance, and his brother went to his side quickly and picked him up. He shushed him gently, placing tender kisses on his head. Frollo thought he would die of disgust.

“ _No_?” repeated the judge with a wild look. He seemed absolutely furious.

Placing his cheek against the infant’s head and holding him against his chest, Claude said, “Indeed that was my answer.”

“Have I overestimated your intelligence, boy? Do you realize what it is you’re refusing?”

“A fine home? I have a manor in the country side. Books? I can get whatever I want at a simple request. Status? I’ll earn that myself.”

Frollo’s anger turned from explosive to dangerously silent. “This was a chance offered to you, from the goodness of my heart, to escape my antagonism. Is an enemy truly what you wish to make of me, boy? Think wisely.”

He received a vexed sigh. “I don’t want you as either my friend or my enemy.” Really he just wanted to be left alone.

“Well you should have thought of this before you publicly humiliated me that day,” Frollo said in a very low, foreboding voice.

Claude looked at him, having finally quietened Jehan. “You wished to kill a child.”

“A fool’s answer!” he hissed. “Where is the monster anyway? I only see a normal-looking baby in your arms.”

Quasimodo was in fact watching the entire exchange. He had his head poked from behind the door of the adjacent room, and he looked apprehensively between the two men.

When his adoptive father gestured to him, he complied quickly. “Quasimodo, come,” said Claude with an outstretched hand. The boy took laborious, unbalanced steps before latching onto the hand and hiding behind Claude.

“Quasimodo?” sneered Frollo, looking hatefully at the child. “A suitable name.”

“A commemoration.”

“A _description_.”

“Perhaps that, too,” mumbled Claude, but he passed a compassionate hand over the boy’s head.

Frollo scoffed and commenced to examine Claude’s collection of books. “So is this a regular thing for you? Collecting strays?”

“Jehan is my brother.”

“I’ll take that as a yes.”

The clerk had a weird taste in literature. There were of course the religious and theological books, but also an unnecessarily large number of books in medicine, toxicology, astrology, and many other sciences that a clerk didn’t need to have. These weren’t what Frollo was searching for, however.

‘A sorcerer must have books on sorcery,’ thought Frollo.

“Are you looking for something in particular, Minister?” came the goading question.

Frollo gave the appearance of indifference. “Examining your pathetic collection is all.”

Claude indeed had books on the Hermetic sciences, but he wasn’t stupid enough to lay them in plain sight. Unless the Minister ordered a full inspection of the house, he was unlikely to ever find them.

“Examine to your heart’s content,” he said.

And that, he did. Only after he had scoured every room in the house did the Minister finally decide to leave. But he didn’t concede defeat. He was a patient man, and no matter how many years it took, he would make the clerk regret ever disrespecting him.


	3. Chapter 3

It was a day that many would have declared perfect for an outing — which was, in fact, what the now four year old Jehan insisted upon as he clung to the cassock of his reluctant brother. But what defenses did Claude have against those big, sad eyes and that cherubic face? He conceded. And now we find him in the marketplace looking decidedly unamused.

His right arm was extended to its limit as Jehan tried to prompt him to move in the direction of the delicious smelling honey-soaked cakes, and the left arm was claimed by a girl who thought it entertaining to try to test the virtue of a priest. Her friend giggled nearby as she attempted to capture his attention, but he wouldn’t so much as look her way. And if that was not enough, his steps were made difficult by the child who hid under his cassock and between his knees. Quasimodo often sought refuge from the barking dogs and the pestering kids in this manner, and Claude simply allowed him. He didn’t wish to pull out needles from the poor boy’s hump ever again.

“Blessed is this day…” he mumbled to no one in particular.

And as if to add irony to his statement, he saw in the distance a dark form approaching on a steed, a crimson ribbon fluttering in the wind. It was the Minister. Claude suddenly stopped, and so did Jehan, Quasimodo, the girl, her friend, the dogs, and the kids. They all turned their eyes to look at that imposing figure that moved with contained wrath.

Frollo continued on past the group until he at last managed to corner his victims — a gypsy couple. He descended from his horse and approached them with that malicious gleam in his eyes and a ferocious sneer.

“You’re mine at last!” he declared. The two begged, but that was useless. Soon they were apprehended.

Claude watched with the same unease he got whenever he saw Frollo. Granted, he held no particular sympathy for gypsies, but he didn’t approve of the Minister’s needlessly torturous methods.

“Guaranteeing the hatred of a race can’t possibly ensure a city’s safety,” he mumbled under his breath. It was all so illogical to him. Wouldn’t antagonizing them cause them to wreak even greater havoc in retaliation? And he did read about many revolutions led by minorities… No, he thought Frollo’s approach to be entirely ineffectual.

“Did you say something, boy?”

Claude turned to find that he was face to face with Frollo, who was looking down his nose at him. Again, he failed to be intimidated by the older man. Everyone aside from him, Quasimodo, and Jehan scattered, although the two boys clung to their guardian closely.

“I was considering the gypsy dilemma which the city faces,” said the priest.

“Repugnant, are they not?” sneered Frollo. “Don’t fret, boy. Once I find their precious Court of Miracles, I will exterminate every last one of them. France will then be safe at last.”

Claude blinked, eyebrows raised. Extermination…? He didn’t think the Minister was that brutal.

“I admit my line of thinking was less… morbid,” he said. “I thought to solve the pervasiveness of their crimes from the very source.”

Frollo raised an eyebrow. He was frowning deeply but he allowed this pretentious young man who obviously lacked his ministerial vision to continue, if only to amuse him. “Meaning?”

“Their illiteracy. Cure that and they will have no reason to steal or to perform any of their trickery.”

He received a derisive snicker. Frollo shook his head in dark amusement. “Do you think it’s this easy, you silly boy? Trickery and thievery run in their blood. They wouldn’t simply abandon their treacherous ways because you put a book on their lap and a pen in their hand.”

Admittedly, Claude still tended towards idealism (which will quite sadly be replaced by cynicism as he ages), but he wasn’t convinced of Frollo’s explanation. It didn’t satisfy his scientific mind. Then again, this was none of his business and he wished to return to his house where there would be no people and many books.

“A mere opinion,” said Claude with a shrug. “In any case, I should take the children back home before it gets late.”

Unfortunately, little Jehan didn’t find this conclusion at all to his satisfaction. “But Claude! We didn’t even buy any sweets!”

His brother sighed. “We’ll pick up some cakes on our way back. You get to choose which kind.”

Jehan pursed his lip in a pout that melted his brother’s heart. “I want two kinds. Honey and caramel.”

Claude was reluctant but he conceded, smiling tenderly at the boy. “Very well.”

“Keep up this meekness and your pest will be spoiled beyond repair,” Frollo said lowly. He was in fact correct, but Claude hardly paid him a mind. A decade later, he would look back and grimly remember the older man’s words.

“He’s a good kid,” he said, running a hand over a curly, blond head. Jehan contradicted his brother’s statement by sticking out his tongue at the Minister, who flinched and snarled.

“Good as spilt milk!”

Unfortunately, he couldn’t imprison a four year old. Perhaps he will in the future. This thought made him smirk. The sorcerer, the monster, and the pest all captured and tortured? What bliss…

Claude seemed uncomfortable at Frollo’s obscure delight that was suddenly directed at him. He shifted out of his line of sight and grabbed the two boys’ hands.

“Come,” he said lowly, sparing the Minister one last look before going his way.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow you guys the fandom is so dead


End file.
